Squeeze
by TheSecretCity
Summary: I don't know how many people still read X-Files stuff, but I only discovered Mulder and Scully about 2 years ago. This is my rewrites of the episodes featuring my OC Anne Hadrian. Not Mary Sue, AU, etc. Review?
1. Colton's Case

_**Colton's Case**_

_**It was July. It was July in Virginia. It was July in Virginia with old, cranky windows and the building's a/c unit on the fritz.**_

_**Anne Hadrian wasn't a happy camper. In protest against the heat she had taken to spreading her blankets and some pillows on the fire escape outside the kitchen window so she could sleep at night, stale garbage creaking up to her on sluggish wafts of thick air. And during the day she went with Mulder to the J. Edgar Hoover Building, where she hid in the basement studying while he worked. It was somewhat cooler underground, even if the air was just as snarky about moving.**_

_**They had started her schooling together-basic algebra, biology, and classic English literature. She was buried in a Thomas Hardy novel in the other room when Mulder's phone rang. He'd gone out for coffee-how, on a day so hot she had no idea-and promised to bring her a tall cold something. Probably not beer, dammit. But he'd left to phone unmanned.**_

_**She could let the machine pick it up. Or she could answer it.**_

_**Of course, she couldn't resist.**_

"_**Mulder," she intoned crisply into the receiver. The great thing about Mulder was that his first name could belong to either a man or a woman, fooling the caller.**_

"_**Anne, what the hell are you doing?"**_

_**Shit. Busted.**_

"_**Hi Scully! What's shaking, mama?"**_

_**Dead silence. Then the receiver rendered Scully's judgment in measured tones.**_

"_**Don't ever answer interoffice lines with that name. Blevins will have Mulder's head."**_

"_**Can I use yours, then? And how do you know if it's interoffice?"**_

"_**The red lights blink which line is ringing. If none of the lights are blinking, it's interoffice. And don't ever say you're me."**_

"_**Gotcha. No lights, no using your name, no using Mulder's name. Can I use Blevins' name?"**_

"_**Is Mulder there?"**_

"_**No-Yes. He just walked in. With a can of crack, which is good or I'd have to do something awful to him."**_

_**A can of crack was what Anne called Coke. They exchanged the soda for the phone. The can snapped open, with a satisfying hiss and bubble, and danced down her throat. **_

"_**Sure," Mulder was saying into the phone. "We can be there in about an hour."**_

_**Anne put her things in her bag. It was a musty thing that she had aired out from the back of a closet. Supposedly Mulder had bought it during his Oxford days to hold his books. It was leather, a satchel that had the worn-in feel of a family heirloom. Slowly she was improving the smell and shine, with liberal applications of lamb's foot oil and tea bags.**_

"_**And where is there, pray tell o great paranormal investigator of the FBI?" Anne asked once he'd hung up.**_

_**He pulled on his suit jacket. "Baltimore. Homicide."**_

"_**Totally awesome." She finished the Coke in three gulps and dumped it in the trash on the way out.**_

_**. . . . . . . . . . . **_

_**Anne was master of the art of 'I am so invisible, you can't see how good I am'. Even with her heels sniping at the formal carpeting of the high-rise office, wearing a tawdry sequined top that went out of style with the disco beat, she was a fly on the wall. Cops and agents just parted for her.**_

_**Of course, gluing herself to Mulder probably helped. He really did look respectable. Until he opened his mouth. **_

_**Scully was in the office occupied by the deceased. Well, not anymore-he'd been moved out earlier. Anne sniffed-he hadn't been dead in there that long. The smell hadn't penetrated the furnishings.**_

"_**Hey Scully," Mulder greeted her from behind. She didn't even flinch.**_

"_**George Usher, found dead this morning," she began without preamble. "All windows locked form the inside, no evidence on the security cameras. This follows a college girl killed in her eight-by-ten cinderblock dorm room with all windows and doors locked from the inside. Both victims had their livers ripped out."**_

"_**Ouch." was Mulder's only comment.**_

_**Scully raised her eyebrow in a silent snort. "Tom's a friend of mine. He asked us to look into it, as a consult."**_

"_**So how's this an X-File? Besides the obvious impossible entry. Maybe telekinesis…"**_

"_**It's not. It's a favor for a friend."**_

"_**But why didn't he just come to me? Not that he can't go to you, or anything."**_

_**Scully snapped on her gloves, silently handing Anne a pair. She put them on, entranced by the unfolding story.**_

"_**You make people uncomfortable, Mulder. They think you're theories are a bit…"**_

"_**Spooky?" Mulder supplied. Anne saw his face shift into the tease he put on for Scully-lower lip starting to creep out, eyes a hint wider. "Do you think I'm spooky?"**_

_**Anne snorted. "Dad. Without even going into what you do for a living, may I point out that you think crunched-up Oreos in milk constitutes cereal, you mix all leftovers with fried eggs, and watch reruns of the original Godzilla and King Kong at least twice a week. That isn't just creepy, it's criminal. Particularly the leftovers."**_

"_**You just don't like me messing with the food you cook."**_

"_**Hell no. I put effort into that shit. If it needed fried eggs I would've made it with fried eggs. You ruin things. Routinely."**_

_**He stuck his tongue out at her. She returned the favor.**_

_**Anne could hear people behind her saying Agent Scully was inside. Anne promptly slipped over to where Scully's crime scene kit was set up, watching out the corner of her eye.**_

_**Scully introduced Colton and Mulder, who shook Colton's hand while his own was stuffed in latex. Anne decided Colton, with his flipped-back hair and twitchy nose, was some kind of preppy bastard bullshit. **_

_**He quickly confirmed her assessment. "So, Mulder. Was this the work of little green men?"**_

"_**Grey," Mulder informed him placidly.**_

"_**What?"**_

"_**Grey men. You said 'green men'. A Reticulan's skin tone is actually grey. They're famous for their extraction of terrestrial livers, due to iron depletion in the Reticulan galaxy."**_

_**He said this in seriousness, daring Colton to contradict him. Colton made a face but didn't say a word.**_

_**Oh, those two were going to be fun**_** to work with.**

**Mulder came over beside her, leaned down in her ear as Colton and Scully talked. "What's the first rule of a crime scene?"**

**She whispered back. "Observe every detail and the big picture simultaneously."**

"**Okay. What do you see?"**

"**Usher was a neat freak with a spotless office."**

"**Does anything seem out of place based on that?"**

**She looked, trying to see as he saw. "Paper under the vent from a wastebasket."**

"**Let's check it out."**

**She had told him she wanted to work for the FBI. He'd promised to show her how it was done. **

**They knelt together. She bent over the paper, pushing some of her spiky hair back. "Black gunk. Like little toenail clippings."**

"**Good catch," he picked them up with a pair of tweezers so they could see better. It glinted tiredly.**

**She looked up at the vent, then stood, eyes close to the screws. "Paint's been scrapped at, like the screws were taken out."**

**Mulder supplanted her to dust for fingerprints.**

**Colton felt complied to pipe up. "What's he doing? Hey Mulder, that's a six-by-eighteen vent. Even if a Reticulan could get through, it's screwed in place."**

**Anne and Mulder looked at each other, then back at the loops and whorls revealed by the powder.**

**A long, lean print, clear as day. Hot damn.**


	2. The Stakeout

Stakeout

She was trawling on Mulder's home computer, logged onto the FBI intranet in his name and trying to waft air up her shirt by shaking it, when she found the profile.

It was logged under the case file number they were working on, and had Scully's name on it. She opened it.

_Based on the violence and power of these crimes, I believe the killer to be male, between the ages of 25 and 35.…power derived from his seemingly impossible entry…above-average intelligence, as attested by his knowledge of the ductwork of buildings…the taking of the liver is the most symbolic, as it cleanses the blood…I believe our killer is operating under the classic form of obsessive-compulsive disorder._

Wow. That was a profile? A literal map of how, why, and whom? She bit her lip.

"Hey Dad, how does OCD relate to snatching people's livers?"

He was in the kitchen, clanking ominously and doubtless ruining more of her nice food. "Probably because he does it in each case, feels complied to do it."

"But what's he doing with them? Keeping them in jars, or eating them?"

His head appeared. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, think about it. He's ripping out livers, so he doesn't care what state they're in. If that was his trophy, why damage it? Unless he wants it for something else."

"To eat."

"I never claimed a healthy mind. And on a purely nutritional level, any liver is an excellent source of iron and other nutrients."

Mulder nodded. "Possible. We should tell Scully."

Anne tapped more keys. "She left a message earlier. She's on the stakeout at Usher's office tonight, so don't call till tomorrow."

"You retrieved my messages?"

"I live here too," she reminded him mildly.

"Well, yeah. But your friends don't call…"

"Lack of friends does that. Your turn to conjure dinner."

"But I can't cook unless it's from a can or box."

"Can, yes. Box, no." She pulled out his phone book from the desk, and handed it to him. "I like Mexican."

He began to flip through the Yellow Pages. "Maybe we could drop by on Scully later. Tell her your theory."

"If you feel strongly about being decapitated."

"I do."

"Then we'll eat on the way."

. . . . . . . . . . .

Mulder had picked up a bag of sunflower seeds to wash down the enchiladas. She preferred to wash down enchiladas with hot salsa and Tabasco spread over nachos and a good two quarts of Coke. Except she couldn't carry those into a parking garage too well, so she got a package of hot buffalo chips when Mulder got his seeds. They were crunching companionably as they walked through the balmy parking garage.

"When do you think the super'll fix the a/c?" she asked.

"I think he'll wait until summer's over and then fix it so we have heat."

"That is severely depressing."

"Maybe you could move in with Scully."

"Like hell. She probably has things like curfews and regular meals and schedules and planned activities and normal school. I wouldn't survive a week."

"That's a tad melodramatic, don't you think?"

She dropped the pretense, for just a moment. She was the stray orphan ready to dive into the Potomac, and he was the stranger who talked her out of it. "Dude, our lives are a walking soap opera."

He nodded, solemn. Then he shook the bag with a lifted brow. She snorted. Yeah, right. Sunflower seeds were _health food_.

They had been making noise, because the next thing that happened was Scully wheeling around the corner, gun out and pointed at Mulder's head. She instantly pointed it at the ceiling when she saw who it was.

Mulder put on his best British accent. "You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man, would you copper?"

She looked mad enough to, and included Anne in her glare. Anne shook her head. "No way. This was all him."

"Mulder, you are jeopardizing my stakeout." Scully began to walk back to her car. Mulder, not taking the hint, followed.

"No I'm not. Didn't you see the X-files I dug up? The fingerprint at the Usher scene matched in all the cases. From the 1960s and 1930s. Even one from 1903. All with livers removed. But anyway, he never returns to the scene of the crime, he's already beaten this place. Seeds?"

Scully didn't even acknowledge him.

"He's not coming back," Mulder pronounced. "I'm going home."

Scully mouthed 'good'. Anne followed Mulder.

"Dad. You totally pissed her off."

"It's true."

"Hey, you don't gotta convince me. I know you pissed her off."

"I meant the case."

"I was deliberately misinterpreting your assholed-ness in a better light."

"I was not an asshole."

"Matter of opinion."

They kept moving, walking near a service entrance to the ductworks, when the clanging began. Mulder gave the ducts a look.

"Anne, get Scully and have her get backup."

Anne was excellent at running in heels. She skidded, yelled "Call for backup!" at Scully, and ran back. There were probably permanent marks on the concrete.

Scully joined them, gun drawn. She was the only one armed, apparently. "Federal agent! Proceed down the vent! Slowly!"

Anne could hear the backup thudding to them, men in shoes so thick they were rhinos stampeding.

The vent was kicked off from the inside, and slowly, someone exited, feet first. Brown boots, khaki pants and shirt, followed by a mop of hair the same shade as the boots. The person was a little man, hands raised in submission. He turned.

Anne was used to trusting her gut on the street, and she hadn't been off so long that her sixth sense had been dulled. If she'd seen this man on the street, mousy and all, she would've beat feet to the other side of town and prayed he never saw her.

The other agents cuffed him and read him his rights. Mulder, knowing when he was wrong, leaned over to Scully. "You were right."

Now, they just had to prove it.


	3. Eugene Victor Tooms

Eugene Victor Tooms

It was July 25. It was too hot a day to be trapped on the other side of an interrogation room, watching through the glass while the like detector was hooked up to Tooms. Especially with Colton and his cronies. And Mulder. And Mulder's elephant, which he'd asked Mrs. Neiman to ask Tooms about.

That would go over huge once Colton heard it. Not to mention going behind Scully's back. Oh, he was so dead.

Anne had purchased a cheap journal on the way in. Scully and Mulder both kept notes of all the cases they worked, and Anne wanted a similar reference for herself. So she dated the top of the page and added _Eugene Victor Tooms, lie detector test with Mrs. Laura Neiman._

She sat wedged between Mulder and Scully and scribbled her own shorthand of the question and answer session in progress. If Tooms was to be believed, he'd gone to college and killed a living thing, but never a human and had no idea how to remove a liver.

Anne snorted. _She_ could tell someone how to remove a liver. You needed a rough knowledge of anatomy, a knife, and an idea of what a liver looked like. Not that difficult if you ate chicken livers.

And, approaching question eleven, Anne hunkered down in her seat. Mrs. Neiman asked Tooms "Are you over 100 years old?"

"Must be a control question," Colton decided.

"I had her ask it," Mulder corrected. Colton gave him a dirty look.

"Have you ever been to Powhatan Mills?" the questions continued.

"Yes."

"In 1933?"

"No."

"Are you afraid you might fail this test?" "Well, yes. Because I didn't do anything."

Little liar

. . . . . . . . . . .

"He nailed it," Mrs. Neiman announced, handing the papers to Mulder. "As far as I'm concerned the suspect did not kill those two people."

Anne stood behind Mulder and looked at the test. "Do they look for spikes?"

"Questions one through five establish the baseline for the heart rate," Mulder pointed. "Just watch for deviations."

"Eleven and thirteen are spiked," she pointed.

"Was that the hundred year old question?"

Colton. Anne looked up and smiled. "Didn't your mother teach you manners, Mister Colton?"

"Did yours?"

Anne had no trouble fighting dirty. "I was hatched from an egg on Mars and transported here to report on Earth society. What does that tell you?"

"Besides, we have to let him go," Colton turned back to Scully, obviously the only sane member of the group. "He has an alibi. Building manager called about a bad smell and Tooms found a dead cat in the vents. He's a civil servant with initiative and we busted him for it."

Scully's hackles were up. "He was still in a vent alone, without informing building security."

"He's not the guy, Dana. It doesn't mean your profile's wrong." As if Scully was worried about _that_. But maybe she was.

Scully's eyes flicked over the Mulder and Anne. "Tom, I want to thank you for letting me put some time in with the VCU, but I am officially assigned to another area."

"I'll see what I can do about that," Colton promised fiercely. "You said Mulder was out there? That guy is nuts, and he shouldn't have a kid."

"Hardly your concern, isn't it?"

Anne blinked. Well, that was different, since she was pretty sure Scully shared Colton's opinion on Mulder's child-rearing abilities. Hell, _Anne_ shared Colton's opinion on that. But it beat the alternative.

Colton stormed out.

As they were leaving, Scully put a hand on Anne's shoulder and finally spoke to Mulder.

"You pushed it. You knew how they were going to react and pushed it."

Mulder nodded. Anne was trying to figure out how to extract herself from under Scully's hand.

"And you," Scully added to Anne. "You need some manners. Didn't your mother teach you any?"

Mother. Noun. Someone female who raises children. Never had one of those. "Not within recorded history. Just blame Mulder, everyone else does."

"I noticed. And since Mulder didn't teach you manners, this is lesson one: Back talking adults isn't a good idea."

"Colton's not an adult, he's a pod person."

Scully sighed. "However true that may be-" she gave up and turned back to Mulder. "Why do you feel complied to push your ideas when you know they won't be received well?"

"Because I can't stand people who won't keep an open mind. Because I thought you were right and caught the guy. Because sometimes the overwhelming need to mess with their heads outweighs the millstone of humiliation."

Anne added "It's usually door number three, Monty."

He swatted at her head. She ducked, grinning.

"Besides," Mulder continued. "You may not always agree with me, Scully, but at least you respect the journey."

Scully turned, rolling her eyes. And then Mulder did something Anne had never seen him do. He reached over and hooked his finger on her long necklace, which reached down between her breasts to get her attention. He kept speaking as if he wasn't very personally invading her space.

"And if you want to keep working with them, I understand."

He adjusted the chain and then let it drop.

Scully looked at him. Mulder started to walk off. Anne and Scully looked at each other, and then started to follow him simultaneously, Anne trailing on the narrow staircase.

"Oh no you don't," Scully was smiling. "You have to have something besides your polygraph interpretation backing up this theory of yours, and I have to see what it is."

Anne saw the shared look. Saw not just the curiosity, but the admiration. Scully was staying for a good long while. And Mulder was half in love with her already.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Heading back to the Hoover Building, Anne slapped on her visitor's badge. Mulder caught her pinning it on as they got out of the car.

"You get a new one each time."

"Y'all don't believe in recycling?"

"I believe that what you did was stealing."

"They throw them out."

"Still stealing."

"Oh, buck up. You can't steal trash."

"Please explain."

"Trash is public property."

"But the badge was never in the trash."

"It was trash after the visit when I used it."

Mulder opened and closed his mouth and looked to Scully for help. Scully was smirking.

Wisely, Mulder remained silent.


	4. Werner

Chapter Four: Werner

Anne could think of several ways to mask one's prints, least of all wearing gloves. Tooms had another solution. He had fingers that could stretch to at least ten inches. At least that was what the computer said, once Mulder manipulated the fingerprint image of Tooms' prints to the same size and shape as the ones from the crime scenes.

She had to give him points for creativity. And since he was loose again, it was only a matter of time before he decided to take another liver.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Leaning over to Scully in the passenger seat, she felt complied to ask "Do a lot of gate crashing in college?"

"Mostly autopsies that the seniors did."

"I assume this is similar."

"Are you looking for tips?"

"Hell yes. Always."

"Watch the master," Scully advised.

They had another body. Thomas Werner, found at home, same MO-missing liver, no point of entry. Colton was already there. They were probably unwelcome.

On the brighter side, Scully had given up saying Anne should stay in the car. After a rather embarrassing incident involving a traffic cop, ice cream, and an honest-to-God banana peel, she had decided that Anne wasn't to be left unattended in a vehicle. Ever.

So she walked in with them into the house of Thomas Werner,

"I'll take any theory I can get." Then Colton caught sight of them. "Any sane theory, that is. I'm sorry, Dana. I only want qualified members of the investigating team here."

Colton was blocking Mulder and looking at Anne. Which was rude, because she'd exchanged her hooker outfit for a pair of cargo jeans, boots, and a shirt she'd stolen from Mulder.

"Tom, we're fellow agents. A report of you hindering fellow agents might stand out on your personnel file."

Scully had been silky and smooth as cream. Colton moved his arm for Mulder. "Scully 2, Colton 0," Anne whispered.

"Whose side are you on?" Colton demanded petulantly of Scully.

"The victim's."

"Three to zero." Scully swatted in the general area of Anne's voice.

Colton stormed out. Anne invited herself over to the fireplace, where she could look at the array of knickknacks Werner had seen fit to collect in his bachelordom.

"Tooms," Mulder pointed to a fingerprint revealed by the black powder.

At just over eye level with the fireplace, Anne pointed out another thing. Three small rings in the dust. "He took something. Was anyone else missing anything?"

Scully flipped through her notes. "The college girl, Amy Brandon, was missing a hairpin. And Usher's reading glasses were gone." "Trophies," Mulder muttered.

No one disagreed with him.


	5. Frank's Evidence

**Chapter Five: Frank's Evidence**

**She was back to reading **_**Far From the Madding Crowd**_** while Mulder scanned census records for Baltimore when Scully dashed in. **

"**Tooms hasn't shown up for work since his arrest and his apartment is a front no one has ever lived there," Scully rushed out. **

"**How do we learn about the future?" Mulder asked in one of his non sequential question, then answered it. "We look to the past."**

**Anne leaned back to get a better view of the screen. It didn't help, so she walked over.**

**It showed the address of one Eugene Tooms in 1903-66 Exeter Street, apartment 103.**

"**But Tooms can't have been alive in 1903," was the protest Scully selected.**

"**How else can you explain the behavior, and the fingerprints?" Mulder challenged.**

"**Genetics might explain the patterns. One person raises an offspring, who raises the next-"**

"**So what is this, the anti-Waltons?"**

**Anne had to insert an opinion or she'd blow up. "I always thought the Waltons were creepy."**

"**Check the address of the 1903 victim."**

"**Apartment 203. He killed the guy above him?" **

**Mulder nodded at Scully's question. "Maybe he played the Victrola too loud."**

**Anne was doing some quick addition. "He'll strike next in 2023. By then Scully'll be the Director of the FBI and Dad'll have been abducted by aliens at least twice and drummed out. He still needs two more livers this round before he quits."**

**Mulder nodded. "Okay. Scully, you go through the Census. Anne, take newspaper articles around the times of each spree. I'll go through this century's marriage-birth-death certificates and-Do you have any Dramamine, by any chance? Cause these things make me seasick."**

**He got no sympathy.**

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

**Having drank a good liter of Coke and eyes slightly crossed, Anne rejoined the living. Neither Mulder nor Scully looked better.**

"**Nothing," Scully sighed. "You?"**

**Mulder was halfway to catatonia. "Never was born, never married, never died."**

"**At least not in Baltimore County."**

**Anne rechecked her notes. "I've got the name and current address of the lead investigator in 1933. Frank Briggs, Lynne Acres Retirement Home. I called. He'll see us."**

"**After I stop wanting to puke."**

"**Thanks, Dad. I totally needed that image parading around my brain."**

**. . . . . . . . . . .**

**Retirement homes were unpleasant. They smelled of antiseptic, old ladies perfume, old people feet, used socks, and paper. **

**Hopefully, if she had any children, they would give her the gun and let her clean up before putting her in a retirement home.**

**However, Frank seemed relatively content. He sat in his wheelchair as Anne introduced Mulder and Scully and they settled into his furniture-Scully in the only chair, Mulder on the footstool, Anne on the bed.**

"**I've been waiting twenty-five years for you," Frank announced. Mulder leaned forward incredulously.**

"**When I was on the force, I saw my share of murders. Bloody ones. But at the end of the day, I was always able to go home, throw some balls with my kid. I mean, you had to be able to do that, you'd go crazy otherwise. But when I walked into that room, my heart went cold. My hands numbed. **

"**When I heard about the death camps in forty-five, I remembered those bodies. When I read about the Kurds and the Bosnians, that room floats in front of my eyes. It's like all the horrible acts humanity is capable of gave birth to some kind of human monster. That's why I saw I've been waiting for you. We never caught him, and I knew he'd be back."**

**Frank wheeled out of the way. "There's a box in the chest. Get it for me."**

**Anne was closest. She put it on the bed and everyone gathered round to see what was in it. Like an inverted Christmas.**

"**I was riding a desk in sixty-three, no one would bring me on. I knew the same person who was responsible for the murders in thirty-three were responsible for the new murders. So I collected evidence, officially and, ah, unofficially."**

**Scully was holding a jar of formalin that held some kind of body part. "Piece of the extracted liver?"**

**It was clearly incredulous.**

"**In each murder," Frank continued. "Something was missing. A hairbrush in the Taylor murder. A coffee mug in the Walters case. Never found."**

**Mulder finally asked the question he'd been dying to since they walked in. "Have you ever heard the name Eugene Victor Tooms?"**

"**Of course," Frank handed him some old black-and-white surveillance photos. "I took those in thirty-three when he was a suspect. He's older now, obviously."**

**If anything, the photos showed a Tooms exactly as they all knew him. Young, shifty, mousey. Not a hair changed. Just some wardrobe modifications.**

**Frank scratched his chin. "Then he lived at-"**

"**66 Exeter Street," Mulder and Anne finished together.**


	6. 66 Exeter Street

Chapter Six: 66 Exeter Street

The sign on 66 Exeter Street read 'Pierre Paris and Sons' in a writing between copperplate and print. The apartments had been above a store. Neither were now inhabited.

On the second floor of the building was the first round of rooms, including 103. Tooms' old residence.

Mulder and Scully drew their guns before opening the door, Anne plastered against to old walls. Then she backed against a section with a strut in case Tooms had a gun. Plaster walls were useless if bullets were flying.

She didn't need to worry. The room was as abandoned as the rest of the building. But the cold hit her hard, and she saw her breath fog the air. In July. In a hot stuffy room in Baltimore. At noon.

And just as quickly, her breath vanished and it was hot again.

"The old man was right," Mulder was church quiet. "You can feel it."

Leave it to Mulder to be moved by the presence of a serial killer. The universe was totally whacked on crack three lines over.

"No one here now," Scully's words banished the last of the creeps from Anne's skin, and she swam forward boldly into the room that held nothing but a mattress pressed against the wall.

And any mattress that stained was creepy in and of itself. She didn't really want to know what created those stains. Like ever under any circumstance. Total gross-out.

"Hey!" Mulder had pushed back the mattress. Behind was a hole in the wall big enough for a person to get down. "What's behind door number three?"

Scully tucked her gun into her waistband. "Let's find out."

"Anne," Mulder added in his best approximation of a parental tone. "Stay here."

"Like shit." She swung herself down after Scully into the dark. And swore she saw him grinning.

Once they were all down below, probably under where the shop had been, Scully swiped her flashlight around. "Just an old coal cellar."

Anne pointed to a small table. It was more of a shrine, full of small, glittering objects. And she saw what Frank had mentioned-a hairbrush, a coffee mug, layered with dust. "Garage sale?"

Mulder went over and picked up a knickknack with three legs-a container of sorts, cut crystal and gilt. "The same pattern as Werner's mantle. Tooms was here."

Scully's light played over the cellar and landed on the back wall. "Wall's deteriorating."

Anne was the first to get close. It was a mass of yellowish-green slime. "I don't think this is the wall, guys. It smells way too sick."

Mulder, the font of infinite wisdom, reached out a hand and got his fingers covered with it.

"Dad, one of these days you'll put your hand in something like flesh-eating bacteria and have only yourself to blame."

"Mulder, I think it's bile," Scully added.

He looked at his hand. "Is there any way I can get it off my fingers quickly without betraying my cool exterior?"

And then he proceeded to do a chicken dance with his hand to shake the stuff off. It was almost funny.

"No one could live like this," Scully added, ignoring Mulder's antics as he about tipped himself into the mess.

"I don't think he does," Mulder, satisfied with how much bile he'd gotten off, rejoined the investigation. "I think it's where he hibernates."

"Mulder."

Scully was good. Anne had never heard that much disbelief injected into two syllables.

"No, think about it. What if Tooms' biology somehow allows him to go to sleep for thirty years at a stretch? And what if the five livers provide sustenance during that time? And this is his nest?"

"Well, he's not here now," Anne pointed out. "And he has to come back, right? So we should set up surveillance to see."

Scully nodded. "I'll go downtown and set it up. Mulder, you stay here and keep watch." She looked at Anne.

"If I don't stay with him he might let himself in again and get his liver eaten," she pointed out.

"You might get eaten," Mulder pointed out. "And surveillance is boring."

"You don't love me no more?" she asked with a grin cocked into a question. He ruffled her hair.

"Go with Scully," he said. "You can watch Colton so he doesn't screw anything up."

"Why not just assign me to shot the president? It'd be easier," they were walking back to the mouth of the cellar, Scully in the rear.

"Hang on," Scully said, interrupting. "I'm caught on something. There, I'm free."

Anne felt her breath fog for an instant. Maybe it was best that she was staying with Scully, after all.


	7. Power Play

Power Play

Scully was repacking her briefcase back at the station when Colton stormed in, six feet of generally offended dignity. Amazing. The Mulder Effect at a distance.

"Why the hell have you pulled two of my men to conduct surveillance on an abandoned building?"

"Jesus," Anne commented to Scully. "Dude is PMSing, totally all over."

"You can't just take two of my men!"

Scully never hurried her movements. "It's not interfering with your investigation, Tom."

"The surveillance was called off."

"You can't do that."

"I can't, but my regional ASAC can." Scully automatically reached for the phone but Colton stopped her from picking up. "No. Let me call Mulder."

Scully cocked her head. "Is this what it takes to climb the ladder, Tom?"

"All the way to the top," and there was a perverse satisfaction in his voice.

"Then I can't wait until you fall off and land on your ass," she wrenched herself away. Anne was hot on her heels.

As she passed my Colton's desk, Anne took a wad of used gum she'd been saving and stuck it in the lock of his single locked drawer. Scully nodded her approval.

"You want me to take you home?"

"Where there's a box of instant macaroni for dinner, you mean?"

She went home with Scully.


	8. Squeezed

Squeezed

Anne made herself a large sandwich at Scully's and even sat down to read one of Scully's books, which had grown long beard due to the erudition surrounding them. Scully was getting ready for a bath and talking into Mulder's answering machine.

"I guess you must be out, since Colton gave us the night off. I am _furious_. I say we file a complaint against him. Anne's here with me. Call me. Bye."

Anne, in the middle of meeting Jane Eyre in the locked room a few minutes later, saw her breath fog in front of her. Just like at the apartment on Exeter Street.

"Scully?" she asked. Her voice cracked a little.

Scully tore out of the bathroom, frantically darting everywhere. Her gun was next to Anne on the couch.

"Catch!" she tossed it to Scully.

Scully caught it. "Come here. Stay next to me. Right here."

Anne had a switchblade on her at all times, just in case. Now she pulled it out and flicked the blade open, back to back with Scully.

"Tooms?" she asked.

"Check the vents," was Scully's only reply.

Anne realized that most people would think Scully had lost her mind. Thankfully, she lived with Mulder, and had no such hang-ups.

Her breath was fogged almost solid in front of her. And she heard something scrape.

"Bathroom vent."

She realized that it had exploded off the wall and was coming at her. Scully spun to face the new threat, and the vent hit Anne full in the face. She went down.

Dazed, she saw Tooms go after Scully, eyes virulent yellow. Where was her switchblade, it had flown away, there below the heater. She crawled over to it.

Tooms had Scully down, arms pinned over her head. The switchblade was in her hand.

Mulder choose that moment to crash through the front door, gun drawn.

Anne lunged at Tooms, cutting a swath of blood in his back.

Tooms turned to swipe at her.

Scully kicked Tooms hard.

Mulder swung half of a pair of handcuffs onto Tooms.

Tooms tried to go jump of the bathroom window, and Scully got a hold of the other half of the cuffs and cuffed him to the bathtub full of water and at least a bottle of bath fizz, which Anne could see floating under the soap.

The three of them stood there in silence a minute, just breathing. Mulder broke silence.

"You guys okay?"

Anne had recovered most of her composure. "Totally, dude. Although I may need to wash my pants. The hell did you know he was here?"

He nodded to Scully. "I saw your necklace in his collection. When I tried to call, no one answered."

"He must have cut the phone lines," Scully realized.

"Yo," Anne put in, trying to avoid the gooey looks they were giving each other. "Shouldn't we call the cops instead of debating?"

Mulder nodded, getting out his phone.


	9. Epilogue: In Custody

Epilogue: In Custody

Tooms was incarcerated in a mental hospital. It wasn't Anne's ideal solution.

"You see that slot they push food through? He could squeeze through that in a heartbeat."

"What would you do?" Mulder demanded in exasperation.

"Take him out behind the building and shoot him. Duh. Don't you know places with the death penalty have less crime?"

"I never researched it."

"I did. Obviously."

"I can see that."

"And people need better security, because Tooms wasn't hatched from an egg. That DNA came from someplace, you know."

"And do you have a solution for that, too?"

They were driving back to the apartment. At the asylum, Scully had spoken of tests that revealed abnormal muscular structure and metabolism.

"Motion detectors at all possible entry points."

"He could sneak under them."

"Not with randomly occurring scans at different heights," her mind whirled like a top cut loose. "Or having the actual walls and such wired to a motion detector, so if anything touches them it goes off."

"You'd make the wall a huge motion sensor."

"Exactly. Did Bob fix the air conditioning yet?"

Bob was the landlord. "Don't know."

"Because it doesn't matter tonight. See?"

She pointed at the storm clouds gathering. For some reason that made Mulder grin and ruffle her hair.

"So. Dinner," he asked. "Box, can. Or carryout?"

"Door number three, Monty."

She could see lightening in the clouds.

FINIS


End file.
